Oh cripes, it's just Greg Sargent reading the entrails for a utilitarian polyp.

I was hoping for something more tangible. Something like "Liberals who are dreading the scandal-mania that is taking hold should note that it contains a potential upside: We could steal our souls back."

Liberals who are dreading the scandal-mania that is taking hold should note that it contains a potential upside: It could make a Grand Bargain that includes cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits even less likely than it already is. That’s because when scandal grips Washington, a president actually needs his core supporters more than ever to ward it off, making it harder to do anything that will alienate them.

But of course it could also torpedo immigration reform, the other big Liberal wish item. Not to mention the possibility of an impeachment.

Oh cripes, it's just Greg Sargent reading the entrails for a utilitarian polyp.

I was hoping for something more tangible. Something like "Liberals who are dreading the scandal-mania that is taking hold should note that it contains a potential upside: We could steal our souls back."

The upside would be that Obama supporters might wake up and see they have been conned by a flim flam man and that, in fact, maintaining hope or trust in establishment Democratic politicians and practices is a loser's game, a way to insure the institution of "Republican" policies under an "acceptable" guise.

Good. It's about damn time that they've finally been forced to write something like that.

The potential upside for Progtards is that the ever-swinging pendulum of public opinion means that your influence has crested. The sooner you get to the oncoming trough, the sooner you can start your ascendency back to the top.

A tangent to this are the editorials from the liberals that denounce the scandals, but oh so begrudgingly. I noticed that the Journal Sentinel likes to identify the wrongdoers as "the government" or "IRS,", "FBI", never reaching or identifying "the Obama administration." The editorial's only mention of Obama was to note that he "denounces" the tactics. Not before Obama and his executive branch agencies were exposed, though.

If this happened under a R president, they would be all over the president with "the buck stops here" assertions. Hard for them to acknowledge the incompetence and arrogance of Obama, since that is admitting something they cannot bear. Best to accuse the various entities within the executive branch to save face.

"Julian Bond, with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said during a Tuesday interview on MSNBC that it’s only right and just that the federal government and the IRS target tea party groups."

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization.

Its president and founder, Abon’go “Roy’ Malik Obama, is Barack Obama’s half-brother and was the best man at his wedding, but he has a checkered past. In addition to running his charity, Malik Obama ran unsuccessfully to be the governor of Siaya County in Kenya. He was accused of being a wife beater and seducing the newest of his twelve wives while she was a 17-year-old school girl.

If this happened under a R president, they would be all over the president with "the buck stops here" assertions.

The begrudging often requires a dredging of Bush-era scandals for "context".

I've noticed multiple cases now where the Plame kerfuffle is brought up with general condemnation assigned to the "Bush Administration".

Most egregious is a newly minted Media Matters tin-foil confetti operation that links to a 2005(!) Think Progress piece on "23 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak". Richard Armitage is not mentioned, not even in a footnote.

I was hoping for something more tangible. Something like "Liberals who are dreading the scandal-mania that is taking hold should note that it contains a potential upside: We could steal our souls back."'

Nah because as we all know that 'once you go Barack you never go.' back

Liberals who were honestly troubled by the fibbing about Pat Tillmans death by the Army - the ones that truly do have some moral core - have to contemplate this.

Over the coffins of their spouse or dead kid, relatives of the 4 killed in Benghazi were deliberately lied to by the President and the media's future "Presumptive" President (Hillary).Lied to about who had responsibility for the deaths. Literally, by those highest ranking officials, standing over the coffins.

If that mental image disturbs some liberals and various women that crave Hillary! and think Obama is their dreamy boyfriend - good!

And if Republicans and moderates are smart, they will connect the scrubbing of the "Talking Points" done by Rice lying to the whole US public with a scrubbing necessary to comport with the lies Obama and Hillary told as they stood over dead American bodies and had their photo op with the relatives.

The image that should last is flag draped coffins and Obama and Hillary, knowing absolutely it was a Jihadi attack - lying for political expediency. The election was tight, he was the one who "Defeated Al Qaeda, killed bin Laden and put the bad guys on the run".Not a time to be honest with the families.Then the talking points had to be changed to comport with HIllary and Obama's Dover appearance. And what Obama's reelection people wanted to groom the narrative to be. Then Susan Rice was sent to lie. Then the liberal and progressive jewish puppetteers of the media had to do their own covering action for the Messiah. Blame Romney. Praise Rice as a proud black woman. Claim later that Obama declared it terrorism all along.While serving the Messiah by not bringing up the Dover lies.Then Hillary sending her Head Counsel and Chief of STaff and longtime Clintonista loyalist to hush people in Libya and withinDC at State, and get the WH to muzzle the CIA and military.

Sweet!

But whenever it gets complicated - the one image I hope endures in public memory is Obama and Hillary lying to the families, literally right over the flag-covered coffins. And the liberals and progressive jews that covered it up to help reelect Obama and keep "HIllary's future viability for the Oval Office intact" - have some shame.

The idea that this is all a ploy to get the bad news out - check out the Jon Stewart clip "Into Darkness". It's all about how Democrats not on the payroll feel. Will the IRS come after Democrats someday? And where has Obama left all the people who defended him, who called Republicans names?

I read Megan McArdle's Daily Best article about how the multiple scandal dump might be a good thing for the administration in the long run, and almost did a spit take when she wrote "Of course, none of this rises to the level of Watergate..."

Nobody DIED in Watergate, unlike Benghazi. And siccing the IRS on political opponents is exactly one of the things which was in the articles of impeachment for Richard Nixon. Sorry, Megan, but Nixon only had ONE Watergate scandal going on and he at least had the decency to resign from office in disgrace. Obama's team is currently facing FOUR scandals (Benghazi, IRS, AP Wiretap, Sebelius's HHS fundraising with groups it regulates), not including the "Fast and Furious" scandal that was long since swept under the rug but which would have been enough to send a Republican president to the ash heap of history. And with the formerly compliant media suddenly enraged about a scandal that dared to target THEM, it's entirely possible that they'll actually try to objectively cover the whole slew of scandals -- which would be toxic for Barack Milhous Obama and Co.

garage: The DOJ subpoenaing the AP phone logs is just more proof the liberal media is in cahoots with Obama. Makes sense!

For once I agree with garage. As Dennis Miller tweeted yesterday: re AP phone records story. Perfect symbiosis between Prez and mainstream media. They're ass kissers and Obama's telling them to kiss his ass

Put another way, every good pimp needs to beat his ho's now and again, just to keep them in line.

To be fair to Nixon, he was just following in the footsteps of FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ in using the IRS - and nowhere near the excess of FDR, JFK, LBJ. (who were also much more vigorous using the FBI to investigate enemies).